This week for Sunday Supper, bloggers are posting some favorite gluten free holiday recipes as well as a few from fellow blogger T.R. Crumbley, who was an active Sunday Supper blogger with a popular gluten-free blog who fell to cancer this year. I got to meet T.R. a couple years ago in Orlando at the Food Wine Conference. He had an infectious smile and effervescent personality- he organized a meet at Morimoto restaurant in Orlando, arranged things to have fun and do during down times at the conference, went out of his way to make sure everyone was having fun, even dancing on tables at a Spanish restaurant before everyone went home. It was devastating to see his life cut short, but his life was rich, full, and he was loved. He will be sorely missed.
But for this event, I wanted to make some Cornish hens, and was set to make them with a wild rice stuffing, but at the last minute switched it to just a stuffing mix. I recently I got a request from a reader looking for a gluten-free version of the Pepperidge Farm type of herb stuffing (not the cubes). I love doing recipe requests. And how timely!

Truth be told, I am a sort-of self-proclaimed stuffing queen. My recipe for stuffing is one of the top ones on my blog, and quite possibly comes close to breaking my hosting service every Thanksgiving season. And people know this.

And I love making dressing or stuffing. And oh yeah! Stuffing in the bird- dressing outside the bird. Right? Wrong? Whatever.

I have been helping to make stuffing since I was old enough to understand my mother telling me to “Here- tear up this bread for me” (something a kid can easily do when they are small without messing it up- I mean how does one mess up tearing up bread?) A few years later I was doing the chopping and sauteeing of the aromatic celery and onion. And after that I was on my own…I mean, there isn’t a whole lot to it, really.

But over the years my palate has gotten pretty good at discerning certain flavors and seasonings and picking them out. So balancing the Pepperidge Farm seasoning seemed pretty easy for me- at least it does to my sense of smell and taste. It’s celery heavy and lighter on the sage.
You know, making stuffing mix is fairly easy and frugal. Being a small family, I find myself with stale bread whenever I have bread, and even buns. Or corn bread. All of that gets repurposed into the oven to dry and then I can just keep it in a plastic bag until I need it. So for gluten-free stuffing, that’s just how it went. Except I didn’t have any stale bread.

And to be truthful I had never even tasted gluten-free bread before so I was sort of nervous. Sometimes these breads for special diets can be…different, if not outright yucky. I had bought one loaf, and it didn’t feel the freshest at Aldi (where I bought it) but I thought maybe that was okay, that it would help. But at home, I opened the bag and it was molded. (Yuck!) You know how they say you can keep a loaf of Wonder bread for a hundred years or whatever, well, the gluten-free bread apparently didn’t have many preservatives in it (at least not enough to get it home). Not knocking Aldi- I love lots of their stuff. j/s

So when you do get your gluten free bread and want to make stuffing mix out of it, it might be better to do that the same day. Once it’s dry, you have all the time in the world.

Making the type of mix for this is quite easy- you just pulse it a few times in the food processor and it makes the perfect texture.

Of course, while I had been at Aldi, I got some Cornish hens (from the freezer section) since I didn’t want to burn out on making turkey and I already have a baked chicken and stuffing recipe I put together recently (but haven’t posted yet). So of course, I used this in those, as you will see in the photos, and if you follow the blog, you will see I am posting the hens recipe also, since I added my recipe for a French herb roasting rub (McCormick used to make one but I haven’t seen it in awhile) which can be used on poultry and other meats.

Place bread in a food processor (in batches) and pulse until shredded.

Toss shredded bread with melted butter and seasonings.

Spread on a large baking sheet and bake at 275°F for 30 minutes. Give it a stir and bake 15 minutes more.

Prepared Stuffing Ingredients:

14 ounces gluten free herb stuffing mix (6 cups) (see recipe above)

5 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup turkey broth or chicken broth

Cooking methods:

Outside the bird:

Spoon prepared stuffing into a buttered casserole; cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. If you like more crisp on top, remove foil halfway through.

In the bird:

Lightly spoon the stuffing into a 12-14 pound turkey cavity or 3-4 roasting chicken cavities; do not pack down.

Roast turkey as usual. While turkey is resting (rest for 10-15 minutes before carving to keep it juicy), remove the stuffing from the bird, place in a casserole and bake until the stuffing is 165°F to make sure the juices from the turkey are at a safe eating temperature.

Stovetop:

When preparing stuffing, melt the butter and saute the celery and onion until tender.

Stir in the broth and bring a boil

Mix in the stuffing mix and fluff with a fork. Cover and let stand 5-10 minutes then fluff again.

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I love all the options here that you broke down for a stuffing HAG like me! I adore stuffing and used to eat it just by itself when I was in college- Now I like it homemade and I have a few GF people coming this year, so yea! for this!

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